Higher Education

When most of us were kids at school, our English teachers used to have us pick out a new word from the dictionary and write it's definition and then use it in 10 sentences. Here in the Firehouse we kind of do something similar with words that have to deal with infections or diseases. Our words don't come from the dictionary though. Two or three times a month the doctors in the ER suggest a word for us. We then spend time learning all we can about this infection or disease. It is always interesting to learn things that we normally wouldn't ever know about.

We had just dropped our patient off in the ER at San Francisco General. The doctors and nurses were extremely busy that day and we were trying to get out of there as soon as possible. Just as we were ready to leave, Sheena decides she wants a "new word" even though there was a lot of commotion going on. So instead of asking a few doctors for this "word" and getting in the way or taking up too much of their time, she stands there and does a "mass announcement" to the ER.

"Does anyone have an infection or disease they can share with me?"

Before I knew it, Captain Harold is smacking his forehead in disbelief and the entire ER went dead silent. Like a slow motion movie, I look around the ER as Sheena stands there waiting for an answer and everyone seems too stunned to answer. Except one old man on a gurney.

"I got an infection I can share with you."

How she gets her foot in her mouth without even knowing it, I will never understand. But she DOES have a great knack for it.